Much More than a Potato

I found this Asuncion fast-food chain french-fry carton on the side of the road. Translated, it says, ¨McCain: Much More than a Potato.¨


Just wait until the McCain presidential campaign gets ahold of it as a slogan-- they´ll hire me on as a campaign manager for sure, even all the way from Paraguay. Just think of it: ¨Vote for McCain, because he´s much more than a potato.¨Has a good ring to it, doesn´t it?


Stance on abortion? Doesn´t matter. The Iraq war? Ha- a non-issue. Surging energy prices? Out the door.

I´m just voting for McCain because he´s much more than a potato.

Big Anniversary

Saturday marked the ten-year anniversary of my baptism. If I were traditional Apostolic, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized into the flock of faith, accepted as a member of the church, and my rebirth through repentance sealed by the Holy Spirit in the laying-on of hands. If I were Baptist, I’d say ten years ago I was symbolically buried with Christ in the waters of baptism as an outward sign and public testimony of the work that God did in saving the inner-most parts of my soul at an earlier time. If I were Presbyterian, I’d say ten years ago I was baptized and welcomed into a New Covenant Christian community much like Old Testament Hebrew babies were circumcised as a sign of their membership in the People of God. If I were Eastern Orthodox, I’d say ten years ago baptism marked my passing from death to life, from darkness to light, from Canaan to the Promised Land, even as Joshua and the people of Israel crossed through the waters of the River Jordan. If I were Catholic, I’d say ten years ago my baptism sacramentally broke the chains of Original Sin and drove away the darkness of Adam’s curse from my soul, indelibly marking me as a Christian and ushering me into the newness of life in Christ.


Whatever one’s views of baptism, though, ten years is a long time. Think of it: I’ve officially been on the walk of faith for a full decade now. After so much time, it seems that I ought to be arriving already from my journey to the New Jerusalem. As I look around at the road signs, though, I realize I’m only a few steps outside of my door. My soul was changed when God first met me and I started out on a path of faith, but I still struggle with a whole lot of the same sins that I struggled with a decade ago. Lust didn’t get any better after being thirteen; many of the temptations that seemed innocent to me then have become much bigger, bolder, and uglier to me now. My pride and self-dependence don’t seem to have shrunken any, either; my higher education and greater achievements in the eyes of the world only seem to add kindling to an egotistical fire that was sparked in elementary school. Ironically enough, though, I’m still just as self-conscious as my thirteen-year-old self who did everything he could to please the people around him in a never-ending search for acceptance and success; with scores of friends recently making over a $100,000 a year, joining the ranks of the political elite, and starting their own families, the stakes have just become much higher and my vulnerability to criticism much greater.


In spite of all this, however, I wouldn’t trade a day’s walk with Jesus for anything else in world. I don’t ever regret a moment giving my life away to Him and being publicly identified with Him in the obedience of faith. I’m not perfect, I struggle with sin, and a lot of times I fall down flat on my face recognizing the poverty of my still-prone-to-be-spiritually-poor soul in the presence of His rich holiness and awesome grandeur of perfect righteousness. As the people here in Paraguay tell me, though, I’m “joven todavia,” still young. God-willing, I’ll have a few more decades on the road of faith and a whole lot more of sanctification to be had. I thank God for however long I have to live that He’s patient with me. I know He’s walking by my side, straightening out my course when I get sidetracked to the right or left by my sin and pulling me forward out of the pits when I get stuck in self pity, regret, and hopelessness.


Perhaps the greatest joy to me on this anniversary of my baptism is that God continues to lead and want to be with me. Although I stumble sometimes and don’t keep up with where I ought to be, by His love I continue to follow and He continues to change me and help me along. Time teaches me everyday to love my Lord more and more, and, by His grace, I really am being transformed.

Visit Wrapped-Up

Me and the family at Foz de Iguazu
Dad definately should have been a cowboy
The team and their lot of tile work

The past two weeks have been jam-packed with the excitement of winter vacations and a visit from Ohio family and friends. A work team came down from Vesper Lake Bible Fellowship, the church where I grew up, with my dad, brother Joey, sister Jennifer, youth pastor Brad, second-cousin Steve, and two other young friends, Chad and Matt. They came down with the intention to do some tiling and painting work for the school, visit with and get to know the Paraguayan Church and culture, and visit with and encourage me. Now that they’re finished, I can say with a big thankful smile that everything they wanted to do was accomplished, and accomplished well.

Although their trip started and ended rather roughly (coming down, a one-day delay in Atlanta because of Hurricane Bertha and nearly a half-day in Argentina because of a missed flight; going back, an extra day in Buenos Aires because of a missed connection to the States and an extra stop in Cincinnati because of their re-routed itinerary), everything they did while in Paraguay went along smoothly and basically without a hitch. The weather was in the mid-seventies and sunny every day, a real Paraguayan miracle in the middle of winter (Paraguayan folklore says that these two weeks of summer weather in the middle of winter usually come two weeks before the Feast of St. John on June 24^th. As Oscar joked, though, this year, when St. John asked permission from God for the good weather to be in the middle of June, God must have told him to wait until the middle of July when some Protestants would be visiting Paraguay). Although the team suffered a bit from runny noses, sore throats, one multi-day case of diarrhea, and a trip to the Paraguayan emergency room after Brad passed out from a badly-sprained ankle (an emergency room, by the way, where a visit with a doctor cost two dollars and x-rays with family and friends standing all around you in the x-ray room only cost $4.50), God was good and no one’s health was ever seriously in danger. The work was never hindered by sickness, and neither was the sightseeing.

Tourism perks of the trip for the team included a trip to Foz de Iguazu (the South American jungle Niagara Falls), a Paraguayan meatfest buffet, seeing Itapu Dam, boating on the River Paraguay, shopping at a Paraguayan bazaar, visiting the Center of Town and seeing historical monuments and sights twice, and climbing up a little mountain for a beautiful view of the Paraguayan countryside in Yaguaron. Visiting with the people from church, they had dinner prepared for them six times on a trip of only a week and a half, and every day ate an excellent Paraguayan lunch prepared by a sister from the church for only about $2.50. They received much good hospitality, which helped them work hard with determined purpose to lay and grout tile floors and clean and paint the church soccer field. They were able to bless the church in Lambaré as well as the church in Sajonia, where the team spent some visiting with church members in a rough area of Asunción and was able to purchase for the congregation badly-needed fans and lights.

For me, the trip was a huge blessing as well. I was kept very busy throughout my winter vacation with making plans and organizing details for the team, but I got to share a lot of time with my dear family and friends. I had the chance to see Paraguay through their eyes, once more as a new, foreign, and exotic place full of adventure and hospitality. They showed me how not to take small things for granted, and made me appreciate much more everything I’ve come to know and have in my missionary life in Paraguay. The snickerdoodles and small American necessities they brought from my mom, along with the peanut-butter-popcorn balls and chocolate chip cookies they brought from my aunts, ought to hold me off on good home-cooking at least until I return home in four and a half months. Speaking of home, having my family stay with me for a week and a half made me realize how much I really do like home and miss my family. I’m going to keep doing my best as an English teacher and missionary in Paraguay, but I’m also looking forward to Christmastime in Ohio half a year away.

Trip over

The family is back home after a day delay in Buenos Aires. Thank God.

Arrival

Hooray! After many difficulties and no short voyage, the group from Vesper has arrived! Thank God!

Stuck in Atlanta

Crew Update: The work team is stuck in a Atlanta, Georgia for a day until the passing of Hurricane Bertha. I guess it´s better than being stuck in the Atlantic. God´s surely answering our prayers for their safety, though, just maybe not in ways we expected.

My Fourth of July

Friday was a day I was tempted to complain. There were plenty of good reasons to do so, too: it was a really long week, all my dishes were dirty, it was the Fourth of July and I was in Paraguay, and all the Americans in the mission were off to travel the world on the day of American Independence. A couple people wished me a happy Fourth of July, but overall it could have been a really downer day.


Thankfully and by many graces, though, it turned into one of the most enjoyable and consoling days of my time here. This past week was Missions Week at Adonai, a time set aside each year to remember the countries and cultures of the world in prayer. This year the assigned countries all came from Europe. Each class was responsible to research and present to the rest of the school a report on their assigned country, and to pray for the evangelization of that country every morning of the week. The week ended, then, with a Missions Fair and every grade presenting its nation to the school along with its way of dress, typical food, and style of music.


Each grade took the project as a matter of class pride and did their best to participate, from the tiny preschoolers dressed as Greek philosophers to the 11th graders as classy musicians from Austria. Each stand representing a country was meticulously decorated with banners, balloons, and billowing polyester fabric by parents, students, and teachers working together to finish the project. There were vast banquet tables set with dishes from all over Europe, although somehow a lot of Paraguayan food snuck its way in to the mix, too. In the course of the night, I sampled a thick quiche and coffee from Finland, fondue from Switzerland, roast pork and sweet potato from Ireland, fried mashed potato finger from France, lemon meringue pie from Greece, a tuna, egg, and tomato sandwich from Norway, and paella from Spain. Needless to say, by the end of the night I was feeling a little sick.


Still, there was a world of beauty to the entire event: to see all the students putting their best effort forward in study, planning, and prayer for Missions Week was an awesome privelege; to participate in the Missions Fair and see hundreds of students, their parents and teachers, and people from the neighborhood come to the school together was an amazing blessing; and to have my Fourth of July occupied with such excitement and activity was an unbelievable grace.


Missions Week at Adonai really showed me what the school is all about: preparing students to reach out to the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The awesome part of the event was that the students of every grade were really excited to participate, learn, and pray. Even better, though, was that included in the festivities were dozens and dozens of parents and guests from the neighborhood. Thus, the value of my own participation in the school and the time I’ve set aside this year to teach at Adonai were confirmed to me in a mighty positive way as I got to see the mission of the school “to educate children, molding their character in order to serve God and the nations” lived out practically and powerfully.

Family´s Coming

The family is coming along with some friends from the church today... Please say a prayer for their safety!

A Prayer for the US

There’re a lot of things messed up about Paraguay: corruption in the current government basically prevents any major national economic development; a lack of security means you have to build high fences around your house and always be ready at a moment’s notice to give out your cell phone or wallet to an armed attacker; and the average Paraguayan family is broken beyond imagination and irreparably hurt by marital infidelity, alcoholism, and general lack of male responsibility.

Although I see so many evil things resulting from sin in the Paraguayan people, though, there is one great and perhaps greatest evil of which, thank God, they are entirely innocent. It is an evil that has been prevented at every level of society by what many consider to be an outdated, archaic, and stale Catholic society. Still, it is an evil that, because of the Roman Catholic Church’s influence, has largely been avoided and is, in any case, a Paraguayan social stigma punishable by many years in prison if found out. Sadly, however, it is also this greatest evil to which my own foundationally Protestant and “more advanced” United States have succumbed. This great evil, eschewed by Paraguay but embraced by the United States in the Holocaust of our generation, is abortion, the intentional murder of pre-born children.

Paraguayans, most of whom are nominally Catholic, at least get this one thing right: they understand that abortion is an atrocious sin, abhorrent before God and intolerable in society. And their country is blessed because they believe it. Paraguayans are a fruitful people, and they are growing fast. New human life sprouts from every corner here, and demographic studies show that half of the now nearly-six million Paraguayans are under the age of twenty. In the United States over the past twenty-some years, on the other hand, we’ve murdered nearly seven times the number of Paraguay’s entire population in children before they were even born, and we are now faced with the crisis and curse of a declining native population.

It literally makes me sick to think how many people my age never had the chance to breathe because of legalized abortion. In the words of Saint James, I “am wretched, mourn and weep” for my nation. I see that although we have plenty of money, power, and “civilization,” we lack the greatest thing of life itself, and oftentimes we even allow that to be taken away from those who are least able to defend themselves. Yes, we find our rights, liberties, and freedoms in the United States, but we also find our hands stained with the blood of millions of innocents.

I believe that soon we shall reap the consequences for our sins. We cannot cheat God forever, because one day He “shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him” and “in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.”

For that reason, this Fourth of July I pray, Lord, have mercy. Forgive our nation for the atrocities we have committed in selfishness and the innocent lives we have taken in cold blood. Christ, have mercy. Free us from our self-seeking lives to live in your Life, being able and willing to love You and our neighbor, from the greatest and most powerful to the smallest and most defenseless. Lord, have mercy. Give our leaders the grace of repentance and the strength of will to turn our nation away from its massacre of innocents to a society that recognizes the divine blessing of human life and the value of every person created in the image of God. We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever, Amen.